Beschreibung:

Property from the Triton Collection Foundation Marcel Duchamp Follow Feuille de vigne femelle incised with the artist's signature, titled and dated '"Feuille de vigne femelle" Marcel Duchamp 1951' lower edge bronze 9 x 14 x 12.5 cm (3 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 4 7/8 in.) Conceived in 1951 and cast in bronze in 1961 by Galerie Rive Droite, Paris, this work is from an unnumbered edition of 10 and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Association Marcel Duchamp
Provenance Galerie Rive Droite, Paris Galerie Eva af Burén, Stockholm Catja Johansson, Stockholm (by descent from the above) Burén Collection, Stockholms Auktionsverk, 11 March 2009, lot 30 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited Stockholm, Eva af Burén, Marcel Duchamp , April - May 1963 Antwerp, Galerie Ronny Van de Velde, Marcel Duchamp 15 September - 15 December 1991, no. 127, n. p. (another example exhibited and illustrated) Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau; London, Royal Academy of Arts; London, Saatchi Gallery, American Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture, 1913-1993, 8 May - 12 December 1993, no. 29, p. 478 (another example exhibited and illustrated) Stockholm, Galerie Bel'Art, Marcel Duchamp , 2006 The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Parijs, Stad van de moderne kunst 1900-1960 , 15 October 2011 - 29 January 2012, p. 236 Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Surreal Encounters: Collecting the Marvellous. Works from the Collections of Roland Penrose Edward James Gabrielle Keiller and Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch , 4 June 2016 - 28 May 2017, no. 52 (another example exhibited and illustrated) Literature Robert Lebel, Marcel Duchamp London, 1959, pl. 120, no. 196, pp. 56, 96, 175 (another example illustrated) Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp , vol. I, London, 1969, no. 332b, p. 525 (another example illustrated) Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp , vol. I, New York, 1997, no. 536c, p. 797 (plaster version illustrated) Francis M. Naumann, Marcel Duchamp The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, New York, 1999, no. 8.16, p. 219 (another example illustrated) Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp , vol. I, New York, 2000, no. 536c, p. 797 (plaster version illustrated) Catalogue Essay Feuille de vigne femelle is one of the 'erotic objects' that Marcel Duchamp conceived at the beginning of the 1950s, following what he had given to believe was a quarter-century’s absence from artistic creation. The work was first created in two plaster examples, one of which was given to Man Ray when he was moving to Paris from the United States. It was subsequently owned by Jasper Johns who donated it to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it is currently on display. The artist’s proof was retained by Duchamp, and then by his widow Alexina, or ‘Teenie.’ Man Ray, under Duchamp’s auspices, created plaster casts from his version, while a bronze edition of ten was made in 1961 and issued by Jean Larcade’s cutting-edge Galerie Rive Droite in Paris, with artist’s name, the title and the date of conception inscribed by Duchamp on the back. Feuille de vigne femelle forms part of this bronze edition, other examples of which are now held by Tate, London, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which received a cast from Duchamp’s widow in 1976. An earlier example of Feuille de vigne femelle was photographed for the cover for the first edition of André Breton’s Le surréalisme, même in 1956. By 1950, when Feuille de vigne femelle was first conceived, Duchamp had become something of a cipher. Most of his best-known paintings and objects dated from the 1910s, and much of what he had created then and subsequently, was owned by his friends and patrons, such as Louise and Walter Arensberg, whose collection now forms part of the authoritative holding of Duchamp’s work in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Duchamp had nonetheless retained a crucial position in artistic and intellectual circles on both sides of the Atlantic, despite claiming to have devoted himself largely to chess. Feuille de vigne femelle was one of a trio of works, alongside Objet dard and Coin de chasteté , described as his ‘Erotic Objects’, which supposedly marked the end of Duchamp’s self-imposed exile from artistic creation. This period of creative abstinence was itself a self-